My PC is three years old; I'm looking to sell it soon but want to be sure to be up front about the one problem it's having. So I need to find out what that problem is.
Prebuilt Dell (Studio XPS 8100)
GPU: ATI Radeon HD 5670
For years I've had it set up with two monitors, a Dell brand connected via HDMI and an Acer connected via DVI.
A few months ago the Acer (on DVI) had screen flashing in the bottom half. It would be fine if nothing were happening on the monitor but any time I moved a window or did something the activity seemed to cause the flashing. This is not a picture of my screen but, as an example, it was basically this sort of problem but only in the bottom half of one of the monitors.
I removed the DVI cable and switched the same Acer to using its VGA connection and the appropriate port, previously unused on the card. It worked fine for about a week but lately, on start up, it has the same problem as before. If I unplug the cable from either end and plug it back in this usually resolves the problem until next startup.
So I know it's not the ports and I know it's not the cable. I have once seen a similar flicker on the Dell (via HDMI) so I believe the problem is not in the Acer, leaving it to the video card itself, or something else I'm unaware of.
Does anyone know what is causing this, or how I can go about troubleshooting the problem? The card is nearly three years old had has significant playtime so it seems possible it's wearing out, but I'd hope maybe it could be something fixable. (Also, could dust possibly cause anything like this? I've been bad and haven't cleaned out the inside of the case in quite some time.)
Prebuilt Dell (Studio XPS 8100)
GPU: ATI Radeon HD 5670
For years I've had it set up with two monitors, a Dell brand connected via HDMI and an Acer connected via DVI.
A few months ago the Acer (on DVI) had screen flashing in the bottom half. It would be fine if nothing were happening on the monitor but any time I moved a window or did something the activity seemed to cause the flashing. This is not a picture of my screen but, as an example, it was basically this sort of problem but only in the bottom half of one of the monitors.
I removed the DVI cable and switched the same Acer to using its VGA connection and the appropriate port, previously unused on the card. It worked fine for about a week but lately, on start up, it has the same problem as before. If I unplug the cable from either end and plug it back in this usually resolves the problem until next startup.
So I know it's not the ports and I know it's not the cable. I have once seen a similar flicker on the Dell (via HDMI) so I believe the problem is not in the Acer, leaving it to the video card itself, or something else I'm unaware of.
Does anyone know what is causing this, or how I can go about troubleshooting the problem? The card is nearly three years old had has significant playtime so it seems possible it's wearing out, but I'd hope maybe it could be something fixable. (Also, could dust possibly cause anything like this? I've been bad and haven't cleaned out the inside of the case in quite some time.)
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